Yesterday the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to continue its moratorium on new Williamson Act contracts through June 2013 while attempting to transition existing contracts to the county's new format.

The California Legislature originally passed the Williamson Act in 1965 "to preserve agricultural and open-space lands by discouraging premature and unnecessary conversion to urban uses," according to the state's Department of Conservation website. The act establishes an arrangement whereby private landowners contract with counties and cities to voluntarily restrict their land to agricultural and compatible open-space uses in exchange for tax breaks. The agreements are governed by a 10-year rolling term contract. In return, counties assess property taxes at a rate consistent with the property's agricultural use, rather than its potential market value for other potential uses.

In 2009, the state of California cut its funding for the program from $40 million statewide to $1,000 statewide, virtually eliminating state support for the program. The eliminated state funds were largely paid to counties as reimbursement for the lost tax revenue.

In response to the funding cut, the board of supervisors adopted a moratorium on new Williamson Act contracts in December 2009. However, the county continued to honor the existing contracts resulting in an annual loss of $770,000 in property tax revenue, a burden which District 5 Supervisor Marcia Armstrong said is "carried by the other taxpayers in Siskiyou County."

According to the state's website, property owners save 20-75 percent annually on their property taxes. With the state offset eliminated and rural economies in a slump, rural counties have been struggling to chart a new course on the issue.

Siskiyou County supervisors formed a Williamson Act working group to review their policies and the terms of existing contracts.

In February the board unanimously accepted the working group's suggested ammendments to their Williamson Act policies including tightening the definitions of qualifying land uses and developing enforcement and monitoring provisions.

Since then, the Siskiyou County Planning Department has also performed a contract use survey to assess compliance among contract holders and offered existing contract holders the opportunity to sign on to the county's new uniform contract in cases where the sale of properties has created inefficient and cumbersome circumstances. So far, six contract holders have applied under the county's new uniform contract.

Greg Plucker, deputy director of planning, told the board yesterday that out of 529 contract holders in the county, at least 503 have been confirmed to be fully compliant.

Plucker added that approximately 26 contract holders have not responded to the county's communication attempts. He said the next phase of the county's Williamson Act assessment will be to seek alternate contact information for those landowners who have not responded.

District 5 Supervisor Marcia Armstrong said, "At a certain point, shouldn't we just say if you're not responding you're out?" She repeated her concern from the February meeting saying, "The reason we continue doing this at the detriment to our tax base is to support the economic activity of agriculture in Siskiyou County, to keep small operators going when we knew that the tax implications of this were make-or-break for our small operators."

Page 2 of 2 - Though, she added, "If people are not legitimately engaged in agriculture then it's not fair to the other people who are paying taxes to keep them on the rolls."

Plucker said he was initially inclined to deem the non-responders as noncompliant until he uncovered examples of landowners who were not receiving the communications for some reason. He said he now believes the county should make the extra effort to contact the nonrespondents in order to be as fair as possible.

However, according to the agenda item's supporting documents, Williamson Act contract holders are bound to provide information to the county upon request. The document states, despite the county's efforts to obtain information from landowners, "staff was unsuccessful in determining the status of 26 contract holders. Staff believes that, ultimately, if staff is unable to verify compliance of each property's contractual obligation to be used for agricultural activity, then that property should not be in a Williamson Act contract."

District 1 Supervisor Jim Cook said he felt the planning department had done an excellent job in their assessment of the contracts and compliance issues.

District 2 Supervisor Ed Valenzuela said, "Let's just remind everyone that at least the vast majority of people are truly adhering to what the purpose of this is."

The planning departments will continue to make attempts to contact the remaining contract holders and transition current contract holders to the county's new uniform contract.